


Alive

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham Writes for Imagine Claire & Jamie [99]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 11:08:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16554641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: A 04x01 one-shot. Picks up as Claire and Jamie fall asleep, following their quiet moment in the forest.





	Alive

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted at [Imagine Claire & Jamie](https://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/179863454342/alive-a-04x01-one-shot) on tumblr

She had asked him to make her feel alive. So despite the terrible and taxing day, at first sleep was elusive.

Afterward, still joined, limbs strong and sure and shaking, he shifted them from a sitting position to a more comfortable, reclining position beneath the crude lean-to, there in the safety of the trees.

Watching each other, in the soft shadows of firelight. Tracing the familiar, precious contours of the other’s face. Gasping as the slightest movement shifted their connection.

Speaking a language that had no words. Kissing and caressing and celebrating life, the other’s life, the life they had had and would have together, now, for always.

Claire’s body thrummed with energy. Jamie wrapped his left arm around her right shoulder, pressing her close to him, forehead to forehead on the rolled-up blanket that was their pillow. Her right hand anchored him to her, the pads of her fingers gently caressing his scars.

His eyes were an unfocused blue blur. Her nose rubbed against his.

“I love you,” he mouthed against her lips. She tasted the shape of his words. Knew them to be true.

Then he closed his eyes – giving her the precious, rare gift of watching him fall asleep.

It could have been hours that she watched him, then. Wishing to freeze this moment. Praying the night would never end, so that they could remain here, away from politics and redcoats and yes, responsibilities. Thumbing the new creases around his eyes, yearning to relieve his burdens.

Icy cold woke her sometime later, cutting into the broken skin of Jamie’s bite on her shoulder. Reflexively she pushed up the shoulder of her shift, still puddled around her waist. Feeling blindly for Jamie –

The empty, rough blanket was cold with his sweat.

Abruptly Claire’s eyes flew open, terror surging –

But he was there, sitting on the far corner of the blanket, facing the darkness. Scars beautifully silver in the moonlight. Shoulders and arms quaking with tension.

Whether he sensed her awake or heard her moving, she didn’t know – but he held up his left hand to stop her. Vertical scars on his battered fingers freezing her in place.

So she rummaged in their pile of clothes for her shawl and his shirt. Swallowed hard, as the tall trees swayed above her, leaves like whispering ghosts. Watching him fight whatever demons had come out to play tonight.

Finally he nodded, clenched his fists, and looked over his shoulder.

She held out his shirt.

He crawled across the blanket to her. Raised his arms, like Brianna had when she was small.

So Claire slid the shirt over his head and shoulders. Shielding him from the cold. From whatever he had just seen. And like she had when helping Brianna to dress, kissed the tip of Jamie’s nose.

He jerked in surprise – but then smiled, just a bit. Crossed his legs.

She slid onto his lap for the second time that night, wrapping her legs around his waist. Holding him close, there in the dark. Pressing his sweaty brow into the safe, safe curve of her neck. Shivering as he licked her pulse.

Being with him. Sheltering him. Giving him space.

His right hand eased underneath her shift, fingers deep in the soft flesh of her hip, thumbnail dipping into her navel. His left hand moved to do the same – but she stilled it with her right hand. Turned the palm up. Traced a **_W_** on his calloused flesh.

He snuffled against her neck. Nodded.

She dug her right hand into the curls at the nape of his neck. Pressed him even closer.

“Why?” she whispered into his hair.

His entire body shifted in a deep, deep sigh.

“At the graveyard. Young Ian…something he saw minded him of Geillis Duncan.”

His breath was hot on her neck. She kissed the gray hairs at his sunburned temple.

“He told me she had made him…do things. Against his will. And he felt shame that his body had responded.”

Claire tugged Jamie’s face away from her neck, tilting up his chin so that he could see her eyes. Gently she kissed his brows, his eyelids, his nose.

“It was tearing him up.”

“How could it not?” she breathed.

“For a moment, Claire, I wasna there. I was…I was back in the abbey. Wi’ you, on the floor of that cell. Wanting so badly to touch you but wanting even more to…to purge myself.”

She leaned her forehead against his.

“Sshh.”

“I only healed because of you, Claire. And because of what ye told me, that night. How – how I did what I did, to survive. And how there was nothing to forgive.”

The hand on her hip clenched, nails biting into her flesh.

“There wasn’t,” she whispered. “There still isn’t. Not with that – not with anything else since then, either.”

He nodded. “That’s what I told him. He took great comfort in it.”

“I’m so happy he told you. That’s the hardest part.”

He swallowed. “No. The hardest part is when it still steals yer sleep, more than twenty years later.”

She kissed his chin. “Let me share your burdens.”

“Ye already do, Claire. Ye always have.” He kissed her long and slow and sweet. “And because ye do – ye make *me* feel alive.”

Gently he pushed her back onto the blanket. Wrapped around each other. Cherishing, marveling at what it was between them.

Gradually and then suddenly, the sun came out over the horizon, lighting the treetops of this new world with red and gold. They watched it together – alive, and whole. More in love than the day before.


End file.
